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Auto Transcribing (Transcoding)


Smatthew

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Smatthew

Greetings,

I've noticed that when i have no value for "Internet Streaming Bitrate limit" in network settings (or when i have a very high value, say 500) that my users are still transcribing.  After some trial and error, it seems when users are set to "Auto" on their end, it will always transcribe.  When the value on their end is adjusted to a higher speed  : they then go to Direct Streaming.  My end goal is to have as much Direct streaming as possible as my internet line can handle it.

 

I can supply logs via direct DM as I'm unsure I want my server address posted on the forum.   Thanks. 

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Hi, this option simply sets the maximum upper limit. It does not guarantee transcoding will not occur. What you could try is having your users configure their quality settings manually if you find that auto is being too conservative.

As a last resort you can always restrict access to transcoding via user permissions, but please be advised this will cause playback failures when it is actually needed.

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IcyBergals

Hi @Luke

 

I was wondering if you could shed a little more light on the logic as to why Emby would choose to transcode when it has the capability of direct playing.

 

I was helping Smatthew test this situation last night before he posted on the forums.  He has gigabit upload internet and I have 400 mbps download so internet speeds are definitely not a factor.  As he said in the initial post, his Network > Internet streaming bitrate limit was set to 500 Mbps and the User > Internet streaming bitrate limit was also set to 500 Mbps.  The video file has a bitrate of 24,018 kbps.  I was playing it back on my TCL tv with built in Roku and I'm a remote user so not on his local network.

 

With the playback quality set to Auto it was transcoding down to 1.2 Mbps with the reason "media bitrate exceeds limit" but when I would switch the quality setting to 4k 110Mbps it would then direct play.  What is Emby using to determine the bitrate limit that triggers it to transcode on Auto?  Would the ffmpeg-remux log show the reasoning?  

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GrimReaper
1 minute ago, IcyBergals said:

With the playback quality set to Auto it was transcoding down to 1.2 Mbps with the reason "media bitrate exceeds limit" but when I would switch the quality setting to 4k 110Mbps it would then direct play.  What is Emby using to determine the bitrate limit that triggers it to transcode on Auto?  Would the ffmpeg-remux log show the reasoning?  

Log would show same reason you got there, "media bitrate exceeds limit".

It has been noted on several occasions that "Auto" doesn't always pick best quality (especially between beta server-stable client and vice versa, but not necessarily restricted to). Selecting some fixed numerical value for quality settings (as you've surmised) usually solves it. 

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IcyBergals
1 minute ago, GrimReaper said:

Log would show same reason you got there, "media bitrate exceeds limit".

It has been noted on several occasions that "Auto" doesn't always pick best quality (especially between beta server-stable client and vice versa, but not necessarily restricted to). Selecting some fixed numerical value for quality settings (as you've surmised) usually solves it. 

Alright, thanks for the info.  I guess it just doesn't make sense to me, I would think Auto would first go "Can I play this back directly?" and if the answer was no then it would try to transcode.  Because if the reason for transcoding is "media bitrate exceeds limit" then how is Emby determining that limit?  

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GrimReaper
6 minutes ago, IcyBergals said:

Alright, thanks for the info.  I guess it just doesn't make sense to me, I would think Auto would first go "Can I play this back directly?" and if the answer was no then it would try to transcode.  Because if the reason for transcoding is "media bitrate exceeds limit" then how is Emby determining that limit?  

Yep, ideally it would work so. Unfortunately, that ain't always the case. 

Edit: Or, to rephrase: it does work so, except that limit that determines if it is feasible ain't always correctly determined automatically. 

Edited by GrimReaper
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The "Auto" setting is more like a "Minimal" setting as it often chooses very low bitrates to use. This has been discussed on numerous occasions in the forums by many people to have this work differently with a much more optimistic bitrate chosen. This leads to many files being transcoded on the server that otherwise would have direct played/streamed without the need to transcode.

The first thing I do for any new install is change this to the Max setting on the client and then only lower it if needed.  For example if a person only has 50Mb download speed then a setting of 40Mb is probably a good choice which would then force a transcode if that rate is exceeded. If the person has a typical Internet these days with hundreds of Mb of download bandwidth I just set it at the max.

By doing this if a person then has an issue with pausing/buffering I can set a bandwidth limit for that person on my Emby Server.  So I can control it on my side by lowering the bitrate.  But if the client is asking for a low value I can't do anything about that on the server side.

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IcyBergals
40 minutes ago, cayars said:

The "Auto" setting is more like a "Minimal" setting as it often chooses very low bitrates to use. This has been discussed on numerous occasions in the forums by many people to have this work differently with a much more optimistic bitrate chosen. This leads to many files being transcoded on the server that otherwise would have direct played/streamed without the need to transcode.

The first thing I do for any new install is change this to the Max setting on the client and then only lower it if needed.  For example if a person only has 50Mb download speed then a setting of 40Mb is probably a good choice which would then force a transcode if that rate is exceeded. If the person has a typical Internet these days with hundreds of Mb of download bandwidth I just set it at the max.

By doing this if a person then has an issue with pausing/buffering I can set a bandwidth limit for that person on my Emby Server.  So I can control it on my side by lowering the bitrate.  But if the client is asking for a low value I can't do anything about that on the server side.

Gotcha, thank you both for taking the time to answer my questions and explain how the Auto setting actually works.

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The auto setting is actually probably pretty good as is for mobile devices using cell/mobile data but not the most ideal setting for devices sitting on a network with plenty of available bandwidth to use.  It's not a big deal when you understand how it works and get it adjusted right after install.

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GrimReaper
Just now, cayars said:

The auto setting is actually probably pretty good as is for mobile devices using cell/mobile data but not the most ideal setting for devices sitting on a network with plenty of available bandwidth to use.  It's not a big deal when you understand how it works and get it adjusted right after install.

Yeah, though those 'Auto' issues have been reported with somewhat increased frequency lately, from both sides of the aisle. 

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rbjtech

Has anybody actually posted how 'Auto' technically works ?  or done any network packet captures to see what's going on ?

For example - Is it sending a fixed payload and timing how long it takes to download to calculate bandwidth, is it factoring in latency ?

I do what @cayars has suggested and set all my remote Clients to Max and then use the server side settings to control the bandwidth - this gives the user the best quality without transcoding that I am willing to give them.. 

 

 

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  • 1 year later...
ng4ever
On 10/25/2021 at 11:37 AM, Carlo said:

The auto setting is actually probably pretty good as is for mobile devices using cell/mobile data but not the most ideal setting for devices sitting on a network with plenty of available bandwidth to use.  It's not a big deal when you understand how it works and get it adjusted right after install.

I guess.

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